Russian and Turkish leaders angry at 'interference' and 'slander'

Paul Richter

WASHINGTON: The leaders of Russia and Turkey have blasted the Obama administration over leaked US diplomatic cables in the most concrete signs yet that the disclosures are rattling America's strategic relationships.

The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, condemned comments attributed in cables to the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, saying the American official was ''deeply misled'', while the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, said a US apology for cables alleging financial improprieties was insufficient. ''The US is responsible for those diplomats' false claims and their smears,'' Mr Erdogan said in Ankara on Wednesday.

The comments show the controversy is increasingly touching sensitive domestic politics in foreign countries and entangling individual US officials. While Mr Gates played down the cables' effect on foreign policy, other voices suggest the damage may be widespread, as more than 250,000 other communiques are gradually released.

''I'll be very surprised if some people don't lose their lives,'' the former president Bill Clinton said. ''And goodness knows how many will lose their careers.''

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The cables emerged at a delicate moment in US-Russian relations, amid tensions over an arms reduction treaty that is in peril and persistent frictions over missile defence.

Mr Putin, in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live, rejected criticism attributed in cables to Mr Gates that ''Russian democracy has disappeared'' and that his government is ''an oligarchy run by security services''.

''To our [American] colleagues, I would like to advise you not to interfere with the sovereign choice of the Russian people,'' Mr Putin said. He noted that when Russian officials raise questions about the US system, they are told ''don't interfere with our affairs''.

Other allegations about links between the government and crime groups came from a Spanish prosecutor, Jose Gonzalez, who has spent over a decade investigating the activities of Russian organised crime in Spain. In a briefing for US officials in January, Mr Gonzalez said Russia was a ''virtual mafia state'' in which ''one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and OC [organised crime] groups''.

He also claimed to have evidence that certain political parties in Russia worked hand in hand with mafia groups.

Mr Putin said that suggestions in a US briefing that he was ''Batman'' and the President, Dmitri Medvedev, played the role of ''Robin'' in the Russian government, was intended ''to slander one of us''.

''We didn't expect [the assessment of our interaction] to be done with such haughtiness, coarseness and so unethically,'' he told King.

Mr Erdogan's fiery reaction came after the main opposition party began checking allegations that he has multiple Swiss bank accounts. Mr Erdogan said he would resign if the opposition could prove that he had Swiss bank accounts and demanded that the Obama administration take steps to see that the US diplomats ''are held to account''.

''To accept as true the lies and slander that emanate from the personal hatred of one or two former ambassadors, and to accuse the government, is a great wrong,'' he said.

One of the WikiLeaks cables, sent out under the name of the former US ambassador Eric Edelman in 2004, said the embassy had heard from two sources that Mr Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks. It questioned his statements that his personal wealth had been supplemented by wedding presents friends had given his son, and said that a Turkish businessman is covering the cost of having his four children educated in the US. The cable said that Mr Erdogan's explanation that the businessman's motives were altruistic ''are lame''.

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